Significant Enhancement of Neutralino Dark Matter Annihilation from Electroweak Bremsstrahlung

TL;DR

This paper presents the first comprehensive calculation of electroweak corrections to neutralino dark matter annihilation, revealing significant enhancements that improve detection prospects in cosmic ray experiments.

Contribution

It provides the first full calculation of electroweak corrections to neutralino annihilation, uncovering previously overlooked contributions that substantially increase the annihilation rate.

Findings

Electroweak corrections can be very large, significantly boosting annihilation rates.

Results suggest improved detection prospects for gamma rays from dark matter.

Overlooked contributions are crucial for accurate predictions.

Abstract

Indirect searches for the cosmological dark matter have become ever more competitive during the past years. Here, we report the first full calculation of leading electroweak corrections to the annihilation rate of supersymmetric neutralino dark matter. We find that these corrections can be huge, partially due to contributions that have been overlooked so far. Our results imply a significantly enhanced discovery potential of this well motivated dark matter candidate with current and upcoming cosmic ray experiments, in particular for gamma rays and models with somewhat small annihilation rates at tree level.